


Dragon Pox and Firewhisky

by goldensnitch18



Series: That Which We Call A Rose [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Drinking, F/M, Semi-Public Sex, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-21
Updated: 2016-11-21
Packaged: 2018-09-01 09:27:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8618971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldensnitch18/pseuds/goldensnitch18
Summary: Rose and Scorpius had always been friends, but that all changed when Firewhisky got involved at Albus’ birthday party. Now they are stuck at work together during the worst Dragon Pox outbreak in living memory and neither of them know what to say or how to act.





	

It was the worst case of Dragon Pox St. Mungo’s had seen in living memory. Witches, Wizards, their children, and their grandchildren were flocking to the hospital with the disease and beds were filling quickly. The second floor had capped out and now patients were being placed on other floors while all their best efforts were made to stop the spread. Rose Weasley hadn’t seen her own bed in five, or maybe six, nights. Instead, she had been cat napping in the rooms the hospital kept for the Training Healers who had a tendency to live in the Hospital. Rose hadn’t spent so much time there since her own training had ended and she had become a full Healer. Usually, she worked on the fourth floor exclusively with Spell Damage, but they had been pulling in all the best to try to help. She wasn’t really doing any good and now she was losing her desire to be of assistance. Instead, she longed for a bit of time off and a night out with her friends without a single pox in sight. 

As she washed her face in the sink of the bathroom, Rose took in the dark circles around her blue eyes and the frizz popping out from her bun. Her hair was usually more manageable that her mother’s, but when she didn’t take the time to take care of it, the mop could become downright unruly. She tried to squash it down with her hand, but it popped back out, laughing at her. She could almost feel the delicious pressure of her own shower, smell the sweet aroma of her own shampoo, feel the creamy soft delight of her own wash. Here at the hospital, they had freezing showers and soap that smelled like her Great Auntie Muriel’s house had before she had died. Rose shuddered at the thought and dried her hands, before walking out into the hall. 

“Rose.” She was accosted at once. “Room three wants more pain potion, five is insisting on going home, and six wants to be put back on solids.” The woman, a training healer, waved her wand and the information for the three patients floated in the air in front of Rose. 

“I’ll get pain potion and check on everyone now. Mr. Gurdy is NOT going home. I’ll tie him to the bed myself.” She waved her own wand, making the words vanish and the training healer nodded and walked away, no doubt to inform Mr. Gurdy, who had been in room five for a week now, that no, he still wasn’t allowed to go home. Honestly, Rose was quite impressed with the man’s progress. One hundred and eighteen-year-old wizards weren’t known for handling the pox very well, but he had managed to seem to get better and still held up his crotchety attitude through it all. 

Rose touched her wand to the door of the potions closet and it allowed her to enter. She closed it behind her and smiled. The potions rooms were her favorite. Each station held cauldrons, some bubbling with potions in progress and others empty. The racks next to each station held completed vials. Rose loved her days on Potions making. It was one of her favorite subjects at Hogwarts, and she still enjoyed the thrill of a perfect brew now as a Healer. 

She made her way over to the Pain Potions and pulled several different potencies for her patients who were all at various stages of the disease. She had just finished shrinking them and placing them in her potions bag when the door to the room opened. She turned to greet the Healer who had walked in and felt a lump rise in her throat. The wizard standing there shutting the door behind him was tall and young and blonde. He looked nearly as tired as she felt, but he still managed a smile. “Hello, Rose,” he told her and she tried to smile, but it probably came out as a grimace. 

“Hey, Scorpius.” Her voice was definitely off. She hadn’t had enough sleep to play this game. She needed rest to pretend like nothing had happened like he was just Al’s best mate and life was all chocolate frogs and butterbeer. 

“How is it going?” He walked over to the rack she had pulled her potions from and began to work on his own, shrinking them and placing them in his Potions case. 

“Pretty terrible all around, I think,” she said honestly. Scorpius wasn’t usually on Magical Bugs and Diseases either. He was normally on the third floor with Potions and Plant Poisonings. They had been Potions partners in their last two years at Hogwarts once Al had given the subject up after O.W.L.S. Scorpius and Rose had been the best in their year, and, somehow, she had managed to be his friend like she always had and not make an idiot of herself at all even though she had started to feel like maybe she was possibly sort of feeling something more than friendly towards him during their seventh year. That had pretty much gone away once they had started their Healer training. She still saw him pretty often between work at the Hospital and their friends, but they had both started dating and over the years those feelings had faded, and she had once again been just his friend. 

   Two weeks ago, this had changed. It had been Al’s birthday, and they both had to be there of course. Scorpius was Al’s best friend, and Rose was his favorite cousin. They had both taken the night off work and joked about how ridiculous it was that Al wanted to spend his twenty-fifth birthday getting smashed like they were kids again just out of Hogwarts and didn’t all have real jobs to get to. Al was a journalist for the Daily Prophet, but he covered Quidditch mostly and he had never really gotten around to setting a normal schedule. 

   The party had been held at Al’s house and his wife, Allison, who happened to be a Chaser for the Holyhead Harpies, had pulled out all the stops for the event. Rose had seen people that night that she hadn’t seen since she left Hogwarts, some of which she would have been just fine not seeing again. She had stuck with her best friend, Hannah, and her cousin, Lily, at the beginning of the night. Hannah was dating James, and he made sure that their cups were always full and even convinced them to dance at some point, which Rose had since decided was a terrible idea. Sometime after midnight, Hannah had vanished with James, and Lily had kissed her goodnight because she had work the next day.  Rose wandered out of the house in search of air. Albus would never have forgiven her if she had left already, but she was starting to desire the comfort of her bed and the liquor running through her veins was making her tired. 

   Her feet carried her down to the garden Allison tended, mostly without success, and she sat down on the bench. She slipped off her cardigan and lay it in her lap, enjoying the feel of the cool breeze on her warm skin. 

  “Can I sit with you?” He made her jump and laugh and she scooted over, making space for him. 

 “Are you as ready to go home as I am?” he asked with a grin, that silly, schoolboy grin, and she had reached out and touched it with her finger, without really caring or thinking about what it was that she was doing. 

 “I used to love this grin,” she admitted, her own smile soft across her lips. Her tongue poked out to wet them. 

   “Oh?” he asked, surprised. 

   “Yes.” She nodded and let her finger fall down his chin before it fell to rest in her lap. She sighed softly, and her head moved over to rest on his shoulder. “I’m tired.” 

   Scorpius chuckled, and put an arm around her back, lying back to let her get comfortable against him. “Al would kill us if we left.” She sunk further into him, and her face turned back to his, which was now much closer. She felt those tickles, those little urgings deep in her stomach that she used to feel so long ago when they would reach for the same ingredient or lean into a potion at the same time, and she found that she didn’t want to push them back down. She wanted to kiss him, and she was a grown woman. She could kiss any man she liked. 

Rose leaned in, closing the last few inches between them and let her lips find his in a rush of heat. At first, he didn’t respond, and she felt a tremor of terror slide down her back, but then she felt the hand at her back tighten against her skin and his lips moved against hers, hungry. Her hand reached to grasp his hair as her body moved to straddle him, her mind cloudy and clear at the same time. She felt her heart racing in her chest as her dress slid up her thighs much higher than was decent and she rocked against his body underneath her as her tongue dove forward to taste him.

Scorpius moved his hand from her back to cup her breast and the other slid down to her thigh, helping to push the fabric up. She delighted in the feel of his fingers on her skin. It felt so damn good, better than she ever imagined. There was Firewhisky on his mouth and she was fairly sure that it was the best Firewhisky she had ever tasted. She moaned softly against him as his tongue danced around hers, and his hand slid up the side of her hip under her dress. There was very little of the garment reaching below her waist now and she could feel his reaction to her kiss growing below her. He rolled his hips up against her knickers and her mouth pulled back from his to gasp. She clung to his neck as heat spread through her, and his mouth used the break in their kiss to sample her skin. She felt his teeth graze the soft skin at the place where her neck and shoulder met, and she felt her eyes roll shut as her head titled back. 

Her hands moved down his body of their own accord, stopping at his trousers to pull at the button there and free him. Her hand wrapped around his length, and he murmured, “Fuck,” against her neck as his fingers dug into the soft skin of her arse. Rose rocked her hips up and placed them over him, positioning her body at his tip, pulling aside the thin fabric of her knickers easily before sinking down on him. 

“Oh, fuck.” It was her turn to curse as he filled her, perfectly and she sat still on top of him, enjoying the sensation of him inside her. 

“Don't tease me.” He growled into her ear, and she smiled against his cheek. He was kneading the skin of her arse, urging it to move as his other hand reached down to free a nipple that was already halfway out of her dress. As his mouth claimed its prize, Rose began to move, pulling back up and then sliding down. She was painfully slow at first, delighting in the frustration she could feel in him, but then she couldn't push her own lust away any longer. She began to bounce freely on top of him as he feasted on her breast, leaving what would surely be red and purple bruises on her skin. 

Somewhere in the very back of her mind, some part of her was thinking logically, but the vast majority of her mind, the parts coated with liquid courage, just wanted to be here, enjoying this moment, chasing her release on top of him. As his thumb found her clit, Rose bit down on Scorpius’ shoulder to keep herself from shouting his name. Her body was convulsing now, so close to that mounting explosion. Beneath her Scorpius was breathing heavy, meeting her bouncing hips with thrusts and grunts, though she could tell he was trying to keep them down as well. His jaw was clenched and his body tense. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, Rose.” He moaned her name softly as waves of pleasure crashed against her, rocking her, shaking her, causing her to clench around him. She collapsed on top of him, her body slack, her chin resting on his shoulder as she tried to catch her breath. It slowly returned to a calm state, heartbeat slowed and Scorpius was still beneath her. 

“Rose?” She heard her name shouted from the house and slid out of Scorpius’ lap. They both moved quickly, groped at their wands, cast cleaning charms, fixed hair, and pulled clothes in place. Al was moving towards them somewhere unseen in the darkness. Just as Rose had finished smoothing her dress and Scorpius had struck a relaxed pose on the bench, Al turned the corner and became visible. “What’re you two doing out here?” he groaned. “It’s my birthday! Come and eat cake!” He swung an arm around Rose’s shoulders haphazardly and leaned in to kiss his cousin’s cheek. He led her back to the house as Scorpius followed behind them. The appearance of Al and the rush to put herself back together had sobered her quicker than any sobering potion she had ever taken. Her mind was racing as Allie handed her a piece of cake and a shot of Firewhisky. She looked over at Scorpius and saw him throw back his head with Al, downing the liquid. She followed his lead, trying to drown away her doubts with a drink that only made her think about the taste of him on her lips. 

Two weeks later in the Potions closet, Scorpius was smiling as if nothing had ever happened and she was trying to act like that was totally fine with her. In reality, she wasn’t really sure why it wasn’t. Before Al’s birthday, she had been perfectly content with their friendship. She was young and free. She dated when she felt like it and thoroughly enjoyed her carefree lifestyle that allowed her to work odd hours and pull extra shifts when she felt like it. She and Scorpius both often brought dates to group events and it had never really bothered her before, so why was everything suddenly so different? 

  After the incident at Al’s birthday, she couldn’t help but remember his hands on her skin and the way he had brought her over the edge with his thumb. She could hear her name on his lips and taste Firewhisky on her own. “Well,” she told him politely, “I’ll see you. Good luck with your patients.” 

  “You too, hope this is over soon,” he responded as she strode across the room and pushed the door open, leaving him behind her as her cheeks flushed from the memories racing through her mind. 

XXX

 Once Rose had left the room, Scorpius leaned his head against the cool metal of the storage rack. “Bloody fuck,” he mumbled under his breath. Everything had been turned upside down at Al’s party. He had never imagined that night ever could have ended up the way it had. Even in the midst of their drunken shag it had seemed more like a dream than reality, and fuck if it hadn’t been something straight out of one of his Hogwarts fantasies about her. Rose had always been beautiful and a little wild and he’d always found that arousing, especially at seventeen. Years of friendship dampened any hopes he ever had of shagging her. He knew that wouldn’t end well. It never did when friends shagged, and, now, here he was living the fake nice bullshit while he dreamed about shoving her up against the wall of the Potions closet to fuck her again, and she thought Merlin knew what about him. Surely she was embarrassed, ashamed, horrified, and who knew what else. It had been damn good, so he knew she wasn’t disappointed at least, but she clearly regretted it ever happened. 

   Scorpius leaned back from the rack, put his potions case in his pocket, and steeled his face before walking out of the room. He headed for his rooms, trying to find something to hold on to that would ground him back to his work. Lack of sleep wasn’t helping anything. He hadn’t been home for nearly a week and sleeping in thirty-minute intervals wasn’t going to last forever, no matter how much pepper up he swallowed. “SCOOOOOOOORPIUSSSSSSSSS.” He heard the roar, followed a moment later by a second roaring of his name, and he couldn’t help but grin. Inside the room, two identical boys were fidgeting in two beds as their mother shook her head between them. She set down her book and smiled up at him. 

“Hello, Scorpius.” 

“Hey, Lydia.” 

“They are losing their minds.” 

Scorpius looked at one spotted boy and then the other. They were both wiggling, several of their spots were clearly agitated. “If you two don’t calm down, I’m going to have to give you a sleeping draught,” he told them sternly. “The potions we are giving you will heal you and turn you back the right color, but only if you rest and give them a chance to work. Otherwise, you could stay green forever.” This was a bit of a stretch. The dragon pox cure had been perfected nearly twenty years ago and the potions should work no matter how active the twins decided to be, but Lydia was an old friend of his from school. She had graduated two years ahead of him and her four-year-old boys were little dragons themselves even without Dragon Pox. At his words, both boys fell still, staring intently at him with big eyes. 

“I don’t want to be green forever, Mum,” one of them whined. 

“Me neither,” the other agreed. 

“Then you listen to Healer Malfoy!” she told them sharply, and Scorpius tried to look sternly at the boys who had the decency to seem abashed. 

“Do they seem to be in any pain?” 

“I think they are okay, their potions seem to be working a little too well.” She laughed and Scorpius apologized for the efficiency of the pain potions while he waved his wand over each boy, in turn, checking their status. “They are both responding great. Two more days here and then we’ll send them home with a strict regimen to continue for two weeks. It’s the home stretch, Lyd.” 

“Thanks, Scor.” 

“No problem.” He patted her hand and left the boys behind.

XXX    

Six hours later, Scorpius shut the door of a small room behind him. It was dark and he didn’t bother to turn on the light. He fumbled forward in the darkness and fell onto the small bed. His head hit the pillow, his arms wrapped around it, and he was asleep in minutes. 

He had no idea how long he had been able to sleep before the movement of someone hitting the bed woke him followed by a gasp. “Oh my gosh! I’m so sorry.” 

Rose. 

In his delirium, he reached out and grabbed her hand as she tried to move away from the bed. His eyes adjusted slowly to the darkness and her outline came into focus. “Stay,” he told her gruffly. 

“I …” her head turned to the door and then back to him. “I don’t know …” 

He pulled on her hand, causing her to move back towards the bed. “We both need sleep. Just stay.” He couldn’t make out her face, but he knew from many hours spent with her that she was biting her lip, thinking over the many reasons not to. Scorpius pushed himself up on the bed and moved towards her, scooting his knees forward. She tried to take a step back, but he stopped her. “Do you want to stay with me?” His voice was heavy from exhaustion, but he pulled her in anyway, his arms around her waist. He leaned forward in the sweet darkness and was so grateful for its presence. It was so much easier to talk to her, to ask her that question, and to wait for her answer when he couldn’t see her face. His forehead met hers softly, and he felt her breath against his mouth. “Rose?” 

“Yes.” The word escaped her mouth in a whisper, barely audible even though mere inches separated them. 

He pushed his lips against hers, and she fell softly into him, her body letting him support her. He moved his hands gently up her body to cup her face. Her tongue slid across his mouth, parting his lips. He moaned into her mouth against his will.

“Scor,” she sighed softly as their lips parted. He moved his arms around her again and twisted her down to the soft mattress. His body fell with hers as his mouth claimed her neck, sucking softly at her tender skin. Rose’s hands wrapped around his neck and up to clench his hair in her fingers. She pulled him up to her, and he lost himself in the feel of her tongue against his lips. He let out a soft moan of frustration, too tired to hold back, and his tongue met hers, tasting her. Her body was pressing up into him, and he wanted to feel every inch of her, to memorize her skin, to have her delirious with desire underneath him as he pumped into her, but they both needed sleep. They needed it more than anything else right now, so he forced himself to pull back from her. “We need sleep,” he croaked out, and she sighed, frustration huffing against his mouth. 

“Yeah,” she agreed, reluctantly as he leaned down to pull the thin blanket over them both. She turned into him, and he wrapped an arm around her waist before he closed his eyes. She moved closer, her head resting against his chest and his chin against the top of her head. He tried not to think about what this meant so that he could get more sleep before being called away. 

XXX

Five days later, Rose was finally able to use her own shower again. Most of her patients had gone home, and the few she had left were reassigned for the day so she could catch up on some real sleep before she headed back in for the night shift. The epidemic wasn’t over, but they seemed to finally be getting ahead of it and were sending home more patients than they were gaining. 

She had a stack of post on the counter, but it would have to wait. The only things she cared about today were her hot shower, food, and her bed. She had satisfied her need for the shower, dried her hair with her wand, and wandered into her kitchen to find something that might be salvageable. She was picking through biscuits in her cupboard when someone knocked on her front door. 

Rose stared over at it. She didn’t want to deal with friends or family. She wanted to eat something and go to sleep. She wanted to be left alone for these few precious hours that were just hers before she had to floo back to St. Mungo’s and would get stuck there for who knew how long again, so she stood there, silent. 

A few minutes passed with her standing there, afraid that even her breathing was too loud, and then the knock came again. This time, it was accompanied by her name. “Rose?” She took a step towards the door without thinking and then stopped. 

Did she want to see him? 

Did she want to talk to him? 

Scorpius had pulled her into him, kissed her, made her want to stay with him, and then when she had awoke he was gone. She had only seen him from afar a few times over the last few days. 

He didn’t talk to her. 

He didn’t look at her. 

He gave no sign at all that she was anything to him. 

Except … now he was knocking at her door. 

She stepped forward, closing the space between her and the door quickly and pulled it open.

“Rose,” he said again, seemingly surprised that she had actually opened the door. 

“Did you need something?” she asked, trying not to sound like she wanted him to need something. She didn’t need him. She didn’t even know how she really felt about him. 

“I just … I thought …” Scorpius ran a hand through his blond hair and shifted his eyes from hers to her door and down to her bare feet. “We could talk maybe.” 

“About what?” She didn’t move to open the door. She didn’t give him an inch. He’d left her alone. He made her feel like he wanted her. He gave her hope that he had feelings that were more than just about their friendship. He made her body feel like it was on fire. Then he slept next to her and left her and didn’t say anything about it for five damn days. They were in the same building for five days and he hadn’t spoken to her once. 

“I …  Rose, come on.” He looked back at her and took a step in towards her. She backed up from him, not trusting her own body if he touched her. She abandoned the door, and he  used the opportunity to move into the flat. She watched him shut the door behind him and turn to face her. 

“What is it?” she asked, and she could hear the unease in her own voice. 

“I mean … something happened.” 

“Seriously?” 

“I don’t … nothing is coming out right.” 

“It’s fine Scorpius. You don’t have to do this. I know you just … it wasn’t anything.” 

Something flashed across his face at her words. “Really? I mean at Al’s I wasn’t sure but at work … that felt like …” He stopped talking, coughed nervously, and Rose felt that pull towards him again that had made her that first step towards the door. She pushed it back. 

“Like what?” she asked. Her voice was low and full of emotion now. There was no containing that this conversation was hard for her. 

“I can’t stop thinking about you,” he admitted. 

Her heart clenched in her chest at his words, and she closed her eyes to try to stay grounded. “Me either,” she nearly whispered, as she opened them. He was standing very close to her now. His hand was reaching out, fingers found her hair and lips found her mouth. As she felt his lips press softly against hers, his hand clenched her hair, and her body fell into his. She gripped the cloth of his shirt tightly as a soft noise escaped her against her will. 

“Rose,” he breathed her name again. 

“Scor …”

“I just …” 

“You left me alone,” her words cracked as she spoke them. She hated it. 

His forehead fell against hers. “I didn’t want to wake you up.” 

“You ignored me.” 

“You ignore me, too.” 

“Yeah.” She actually laughed at that. “I guess that’s true.” 

“When this shit is over at work, go on a real date with me?” 

“Yeah.” She couldn’t help but smile at his words. 

“I guess I should let you sleep.” He started to pull away, but she held him against her. 

“Stay with me?” she whispered. 

He kissed her again. Her body shivered as his free hand slid up her hip and pulled the fabric of her shirt up her side. His lips pulled her bottom lip into suck softly. His tongue lazily traced a circle against her mouth and darted in to taste her. Rose pushed her own hands up his chest to pull at his buttons to reveal his skin to her. She wanted to feel him against her, to taste all of him. 

“Yes,” he responded, needlessly.


End file.
